Title:Approximating the Fréchet Distance for Realistic Curves in Near Linear Time

Abstract: We present simple and practical $(1+\eps)$-approximation algorithm for the
Frechet distance between curves. To analyze this algorithm we introduce a new
realistic family of curves, $c$-packed curves, that is closed under
simplification. We believe the notion of $c$-packed curves to be of independent
interest. We show that our algorithm has near linear running time for
$c$-packed curves, and show similar results for other input models.